The Australian Banking Association has warned that national payment systems are being placed at risk by a widening gap in the tax and regulatory obligations placed on banks and large multinational digital players.
ABA chief executive Simon Birmingham said that while banks were investing strongly in the payment services and consumer protection measures, tech giants were effectively getting a “free ride”.
Speaking at a business forum in Sydney, Birmingham said that some tech giants were paying a fraction of the tax that banks contribute to the economy while siphoning profits offshore and operating with far lighter regulatory burdens.
“If Australia’s resilience depends on institutions that are willing to pay their fair share of tax, invest in infrastructure, sustain lending to Australians through downturns, deploy hardship relief after disasters, fight scams and fund a payment system to keep the economy moving, then the systems those institutions operate in must be sustainable.
“You cannot load one set of participants with the full weight of regulation and taxation while allowing others to free ride and then get somehow magically expect the foundations to hold indefinitely,” Birmingham warned.
The ABA used the event to launch a research paper detailing its position in which it revealed that banks paid $16 billion in taxies and levies in 2025. In contrast, the ABA said, Meta, Apple and Google’s Alphabet combined paid only $324 million in the same period.
At the same time, Birmingham said, digital payment providers, such as buy now pay later (BNPL) companies not subject to regulations were being allowed to charge businesses up to 11 time more than banks for transactions while the Reserve Bank of Australia was seeking to impose cuts on fees charged by banks.
According to the ABA report, in 2025 unregulated BNPL providers charged small businesses between $3.00 and $8.00 per transaction to process a $100 payment. PayPal charged $3.98, Visa and Mastercard merchant terminal processing were in the range $1.60 to $1.99 for international transactions and between $0.98 and $1.20 for domestic, while American Express charged around $1.40.
Australian bank merchant debit credit transaction fees ranged between $0.50 to $0.60 cents.
“Payment infrastructure isn’t getting in cheaper to maintain, but Australian banks face the prospect of having less revenue available to fund it while the growing share of that revenue is siphoned off to companies in Silicon Valley or imported into other low tax destinations,” Birmingham said.
Birmingham singled out Apple for particular attention, accusing the company of limiting digital wallet competition providers on its popular smartphone while having no limits on what it can charge for transactions.
“When you all double click your iPhone to make a payment the amount the bank gets from that transaction is capped and is being reduced. And yet the amount Apple gets from that transaction is uncapped.
“While many of us have welcomed the convenience, Apple makes affective competition on their hardware almost impossible by blocking fair access for competing digital wallets,” Birmingham argued.
The ABA also held Apple up as an example when it came to the disparity in tax burden banks faced compared to foreign tech giants.
The ABA’s research having found that even though its market capitalisation eclipsed that of all Australia’s top banks combined, its corporate tax bill was only $153 million.
“That means Apple, whose market capitalisation is seven times that of Australia’s big four banks combined pays less corporate tax in Australia over an entire year than major banks pay in a fortnight,” Birmingham said.
